Turning sulfite liquor into biofuel

October 29, 2014, Montreal, Qué. – A researcher at
Montreal’s Concordia University is working on finding a way to turn sulfite
liquor, a by-product of pulp and paper manufacturing, into biofuel.

Damien Biot-Pelletier, a PhD candidate in biology, is hoping
to use synthetic biology to accomplish this goal. The hope is that pulp and
paper mills could essentially become biorefineries, turning the toxic sulfite
liquor into green energy.

Biot-Pelletier is hoping to expand on the work done by a
previous Concordia graduate student, Dominic Pinel, who was able to produce a
strain of yeast that is resistant to sulfite liquor. The yeast also transforms its
sugars into ethanol.

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